Systems that manage computer or network systems, or other systems with embedded computer technology, commonly monitor various system parameters for the purpose of detecting problems and alerting a human to the problem. Various techniques can be employed to monitor ongoing processes. The monitored values can be analyzed in various ways, including comparison with thresholds, correlation of several values, and correlation of values over time to discover problems, unprecedented situations, or other events.
Some systems use various techniques to predict events before they occur. One such system is described in commonly owned U.S. Patent No. 6,327,550, which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference. In such systems one response to the discovery or prediction is to bring the event to the attention of a human operator. For example, these management systems can issue a text message alert and different techniques may be employed for presenting this text message to the operator, such as a Windows dialog box, monitoring consoles, event logs, email messages, or pager messages. The alert can also be provided as an audio message through loudspeakers, headsets, or a telephone. An example of a system that provides audio alert messaging is described in commonly owned, concurrently filed, co-pending U.S. Utility Application No. 10/091,067, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Generating and Recognizing Speech as a User Interface Element in Systems and Network Management”, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference. Commonly owned, concurrently filed, co-pending U.S. Utility Application No. 10/091,065. entitled “Method and Apparatus for Generating Context-Descriptive Messages”, is also incorporated by reference in its entirety.
In large management systems with many managed components and/or networks and a high level of activity, the management systems may generate a large number of alert messages. Some alert messages may be more important than others, but are typically issued because the alert functionality of such management systems is not open to modification. Other messages may be redundant because several management systems may independently detect the consequences of an event. As a result, current management systems include various techniques for filtering such alert messages based on various rules unrelated to the content of the message.
For example, some conventional management systems designate the severity of a detected or predicted event as the filtering rule. This permits the management system to present only critical messages, or messages about events above a certain level of severity. Other systems correlate alert messages over time or over several objects as a filtering rule. This permits the recognition that a message may indicate a critical problem, even though it may not indicate such criticality by itself, e.g., a minor error may be more critical if it occurs several times in a short time period.
Even after messages have been filtered so only meaningful messages remain, individual users may be interested in different categories of messages. Some management systems include various techniques for filtering alert messages presented to particular individuals, such as messages related to one or more groups of managed components or networks that denote some sort of business process. An example of such a management system is described in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,958,012, which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.